Sources & Data Layers Every layer in districtry Iowa, and exactly where its data comes from.

← Back to the map 🧩 What data is missing?

This app is a reader over other people's data. It draws no boundary of its own and names no officeholder it cannot cite, so the useful question about any answer it gives is who published this, and when. That is what this page is for: the publishers the app credits as a whole, then one row per layer naming the source behind that layer specifically.

Not for legal or official use. Boundary and roster data come from public sources that explicitly disclaim legal precision. Always confirm district assignments and officeholders with the relevant government office before relying on them for anything official.

Data last verified: August 27, 2026

Where a source publishes nothing, the app says so rather than guessing — the missing-data panel on the map is the standing list of what nobody publishes yet, and what would close each gap.

Who publishes the data

The upstream publishers this app depends on, across all layers. Per-layer provenance is in the matrix below.

The layer matrix

20 layers — 7 political and legislative, 2 public safety, 6 schools, 5 geography and amenities. Each row names the publisher the boundary comes from, where the names on the card come from, and the ground the layer actually answers on — outside that ground the layer hides itself rather than guessing.

Political & legislative 7 layers

Districts that elect somebody — from your ward to your seat in Congress.

LayerWhat it answersBoundary sourceWho it namesWhere it applies
U.S. Houseus-house The U.S. House district covering the point, and the representative holding it. congress-roster.json, rebuilt weekly by CI from the public-domain unitedstates/congress-legislators dataset — including each member's district office and Washington office. Iowa — statewide.
Judicial Districtia-judicial-district The judicial election district covering the point, and its bench (district judges, district associate judges, and magistrates). ia-judicial-judges.json, rebuilt weekly by CI from each district's own "Judges and Magistrates" roster page at iowacourts.gov. Judges are RETENTION, never elected: appointed by the Governor from a judicial nominating commission's list, then subject to periodic yes/no retention elections. No phone, e-mail, or courthouse address is published for any judge. Iowa — statewide, all 8 districts across all 99 counties.
Iowa Senate Districtia-senate The Iowa Senate district covering the point, and the senator holding it. ia-senate-members.json, rebuilt weekly by CI — the Open States current-people export (name, party, e-mail) merged with each senator's own profile page at legis.iowa.gov (Capitol phone, and the Capitol's own address where the state publishes it). Iowa — statewide.
Iowa House Districtia-house The Iowa House district covering the point, and the representative holding it. ia-house-members.json, rebuilt weekly by CI — the Open States current-people export (name, party, e-mail) merged with each representative's own profile page at legis.iowa.gov (Capitol phone, and the Capitol's own address where the state publishes it). Iowa — statewide.
County Supervisor Districtcounty-supervisor The county supervisor district covering the point (where drawn), the county's election plan (at-large, residence-district-elected-countywide, or single-member district), and the board's size. No statewide roster of Iowa county supervisors exists (measured, research pass), so the people come from ia-county-officers.json — each county's own site, gated against Iowa Code 331.201's legal board sizes. ia-supervisor-members.json then names the supervisor a DISTRICT elected, for the 17 plan 3 counties that publish that pairing themselves (67 districts): no Iowa publisher attaches a district to a supervisor's name, so the number is recovered by proximity on the county's own board page and the placement re-checked against the roster and the shipped geometry's seat count. Every other county names nobody here on purpose — under plan 1 there are no districts and under plan 2 supervisors are elected countywide, so a name against a district would assert an election that did not happen. NO PHONE RIDES A SUPERVISOR'S ROW: all 17 publish one number for the whole board, which is the board office and renders as such. ia-county-board-directory.json (board size read back from the shipped geometry + the county's own official site from the Iowa State Association of Counties' member directory) supplies that link; Jones County carries no row in either file — it is entirely absent from the state's own aggregate (measured by name and by FIPS), a recorded gap rather than a guess. Iowa — 98 of 99 counties (Jones County is a recorded gap).
City Council Wardcity-ward Which city council ward covers the point, in the Iowa cities that publish their own ward boundaries — Des Moines and Waterloo — the council member it elects, and the seats no ward carries because the whole city elects them. All seven seats Des Moines elects, from the city's own council page (dsm-council-members.json, weekly CI): the four ward members keyed to their wards, and the mayor plus both at-large members in a citywide block the card renders under its own heading — Iowa Code §372.4(1)(b) seats a mayor, two at-large members and one member from each of four wards, so a ward layer alone would answer four sevenths of the question and look complete doing it (§372.4(2): the mayor is not a member of the council, and is badged Mayor rather than folded into a council list). Name, phone, e-mail, election date and term expiry ship for all seven. THE BOUNDARY'S OWN IN-BAND ROSTER IS NOT READ: the Wards service carries a member name and e-mail on each polygon and they are correct today, but a roster attached to a boundary is refreshed when the boundary is — ward 2's feature still carried its 2024-02-16 edit while wards 1, 3 and 4 were edited across 2025-12-29..31 for the November 2025 cycle — and it has no phone field at all. It is used ONCE, at build time, as a WITNESS: the builder refuses to write a roster whose four ward members disagree with the polygons' own names and e-mails. The city publishes seven DISTINCT phone numbers, so the fleet's switchboard test is re-run every build and correctly does not fire. WATERLOO'S SEVEN COUNCIL SEATS come from the city's own council page the same way (waterloo-council-members.json, weekly CI): five ward members keyed to their wards, both at-large members in the citywide block, each with a phone, an e-mail and a term-expiry date. ITS MAYOR IS DELIBERATELY ABSENT — he is elected citywide, and the at-large rule puts a citywide officer on the unit's identity card rather than a district card; the card names him in prose so the council does not read as the whole of the city's elected government. Des Moines carries its mayor in citywide for historical reasons and that is left alone. THE BOUNDARY'S OWN IN-BAND ROSTER IS NOT READ HERE EITHER: the Wards service carries Ward_Councilperson and both at-large columns and they are correct today (its dataLastEditDate was one day old when measured), but it has no phone, no e-mail and no term, and a roster attached to a boundary is refreshed when the boundary is. It is used ONCE, at build time, as a WITNESS: all five wards and both at-large members must agree, matched on first+last token because the page prints "Hector A. Salamanca-Arroyo" where the polygon carries "Hector Salamanca-Arroyo" — and that match is PRINTED every run so a normalisation cannot hide a real difference. The council page also repeats every member in a bio-link anchor, TWO of which disagree with the member's own line ("Steve Simons" for Steve Simon), so the scraper keys on the term-expiry line and keeps the anchors as its control. The City of Des Moines and the City of Waterloo only — each city's own wards are its entry's coverage test, both measured to tile their city (above). Iowa's other 937 cities elect councils this instance does not yet name; the City card answers identity for them.
Precinctprecinct The election precinct covering the point, and its county. — Iowa — statewide, all 1,660 precincts across 99 counties. Polling-place fields (PollingPlace/PollingPlaceAddr/PPID) are deliberately never fetched — a precinct's polling place changes far more often than its boundary and this layer makes no claim about it.

Public safety 2 layers

Who answers a call at this address, and where they answer it from.

LayerWhat it answersBoundary sourceWho it namesWhere it applies
Police Stationpolice-station The three nearest police stations, straight-line distance. — Iowa — the state's bounding envelope; nearest-3 is a proximity fact, not a jurisdictional claim.
Fire Stationfire-station The three nearest fire stations, straight-line distance. — Iowa — the state's bounding envelope; nearest-3 is a proximity fact, not a jurisdictional claim.

Schools 6 layers

The district, the attendance zone, and the schools nearest the point.

LayerWhat it answersBoundary sourceWho it namesWhere it applies
Area Education Agencyiowa-aea The Area Education Agency covering the point — the regional body that supplies special-education, media and professional services to every school district inside it, with the agency's own phone and website. None, and the reason is statutory rather than a missing source: Iowa Code §273.8 gives ZERO of an agency's nine directors a popular election. Five are elected by the boards of directors of the member school districts on a population-weighted vote, and four are appointed by the member districts' superintendents. The card says how they are chosen, and names the agency, its phone and its site instead. Iowa — statewide, all nine agencies. Every school district belongs to one (Iowa Code ch. 273), so the nine tile the state exactly.
School District (Unified)school-district-unified The unified school district covering the point. — Iowa — statewide, all 324 current districts.
School Director Districtschool-director-district The school board director district covering the point — or, where the district elects its whole board at large, that fact. None. No statewide roster of Iowa school board members exists to join: the state collects them through the login-gated Iowa Education Portal, and the Iowa Association of School Boards' directory is member-gated. The card names the district and says so rather than naming anybody. Iowa — all 324 shipped school districts. 193 elect their board AT LARGE and carry one whole-district feature labelled as such by the publisher; the rest are divided into numbered director districts.
Community Collegecommunity-college The community college merged area covering the point, and its director-district count. Identity-only: the board is genuinely ELECTED (Iowa Code 260C.11 — one trustee per director district, elected by that district's own electors), but no single statewide roster names all 124 trustees — the state trustees' association's own page publishes only 15 rows (one seat per college), and each college names its own trustees on its own site instead. The sub-district geometry a real roster would need is itself short one polygon (Des Moines Area's District 2), so a districted card is deferred rather than built on a source with a known hole. Iowa — statewide, all 15 merged areas.
CC Director Districtcc-director-district The community college director district covering the point — the sub-district its board of trustees is elected from. None. Trustees are elected per director district under Iowa Code 260C.11, but there is no statewide roster and each of the 15 colleges publishes its own board its own way — 6 of 15 name a numbered district on a discoverable page, one is captcha-fronted and one refuses this client. Measured per college in ia/WATCH.md rather than half-joined. Iowa — all 15 merged areas, tiled completely. 123 polygons cover a parent layer that seats 124 directors, and the whole difference is Des Moines Area: this publisher draws it as EIGHT districts numbered 1 and 3-9, balancing them against its own IDEAL of the merged area over eight. It is not a hole — the uncovered share of that college is 0.11%, lower than most of the fifteen. The two publishers disagree about the COUNT, not the ground, and this app resolves neither.
School Locationschool-site The three nearest public school buildings, straight-line distance. — Iowa — statewide; nearest-3 is a proximity fact, not an attendance-zone or enrollment claim.

Geography & amenities 5 layers

The boundaries that place an address without electing anyone, plus the nearest public services.

LayerWhat it answersBoundary sourceWho it namesWhere it applies
Countycounty Which county contains the point, and its county auditor (Iowa's county election commissioner, Iowa Code 47.2). All six elected county offices (Iowa Code ch. 331), rebuilt weekly by CI. The AUDITOR (ia-county-auditors.json) joins the Iowa State Association of County Auditors' directory (https://iowaauditors.org/find/directory/ — name, party, office address, phone) to the Secretary of State's own auditors page (https://sos.iowa.gov/auditors/ — e-mail for all 99, plus party for 4 the association leaves blank). The TREASURER, RECORDER, SHERIFF, COUNTY ATTORNEY and BOARD OF SUPERVISORS (ia-county-officers.json) come from ISAC's member portal, with the recorder, sheriff and county attorney each superseded by that office's own statewide directory. Nothing is guessed: an office whose two publishers name different people ships no name and states the disagreement, and a board of supervisors ships only when the portal's count is legal under Iowa Code 331.201 and agrees with the shipped district geometry. Iowa — statewide.
County Subdivisioncounty-subdivision The civil township, or incorporated-city subdivision record, covering the point — and its type. Iowa's civil townships are governed by elected trustees, a clerk and an assessor (Iowa Code ch. 359, ASSERTED) — no statewide roster of township officers was found in the research pass, so the card states that plainly rather than guessing. The 62 incorporated-city subdivision records and the one unorganized-territory record are Census Bureau bookkeeping constructs, not separate governments, so no roster claim applies to them at all. Iowa — statewide, all 1,663 records.
Citymunicipality The incorporated city covering the point, if any. NO OFFICEHOLDER, AND THE CARD SAYS SO — no statewide source names Iowa's mayors, council members or clerks (measured across four routes, 2026-09-03; the open gap record is ia-municipal-officeholders). What the card DOES carry is the city OFFICE's own phone and website for all 939 cities, from the Iowa League of Cities' own city table — 927 phones, 532 websites, 2 office mailboxes, 11 cities with none of the three. THAT SOURCE WAS ON FILE HERE AS "a membership directory with no public officials export" and, elsewhere, as membership-gated: it is not gated, and the old wording was right about the officeholders and wrong about the directory. Per-city rosters of PEOPLE remain city-by-city work; Des Moines is the one city whose own published council districts name them. Iowa — statewide, all 939 incorporated cities.
ZIP Codezip-code The ZIP Code Tabulation Area (ZCTA) covering the point. — Iowa — the state's bounding envelope; a border ZCTA that straddles the line is included, which is correct for a reader near it.
Post Officepost-office The three nearest post offices, straight-line distance. — Iowa — the state's bounding envelope; nearest-3 is a proximity fact, not a jurisdictional claim.